Tuesday 14 April 2009

Hong Kong Style egg tarts


Egg tart, originally uploaded by Christ tell.

When I go for dim sum, I usually get the egg tarts at the end of the meal, and they come still warm, with this crazy smooth gooey consistency and these gorgeous texture, smell and flavour, brittle puff pastry , aaaaaaah.. They are not too sweet either..I know, I am raving, but hey, they ARE gorgeous.
So I wanted to try them at home. No idea how they are made. Ah. Let's google it. humm, the ones I want to make are those that people take pictures of at the bakeries and restaurants hence no recipe.
On the wiki I could find a recipe for Portuguese egg tarts, but no, not what I want..

You know me, I would nott have stopped at that, so yes I improvised!
And guess what? the result was rather close, I'm very proud of myself.Yes it must be said.

So I prepared a french pastry, and also used puff pastry I bought (never done puff pastry, somehow it clashes with the title of my blog..).

for 6 egg tarts:

French pastry (for the equivalent of one big tart = twelve little tarts):
- 30 to 40g soften butter (no British butter allowed there, please use the French one, they taste very different!)
- 250g flour (Coeliacs use soya flour)
- 1tblsp sugar
- hot water (about an espresso cup worth)

crumble the butter into flour and sugar, when homogeneous, add the water, and work into a smooth ball, but do not knead and work as least as possible: the more you work it the hardest it will come out once cooked.
Cut and place in moulds.

The egg tart filling:
- 1 egg
- soya milk (ahem, no I did not measure, sorry... but think in proportion more than you would use in a quiche)
- vanilla essence, a few drops

Mix and pour in the pastry

Place in oven at 200 degrees for 15 minutes, then watch for the next 5 minutes, I figured from the look of the egg tarts I get at the restaurants that the filling should not cook too much, and the tart should look glazed.

Eat whilst it's hot please!
These egg tarts are still different from the ones I had in the restaurants, despite being close, and after making them I kept looking on the internet.
I fould this recipe(by Easy Recipe) and that one (by My Kitchen Snippet)and the Portuguese ones (by Leite's culinaria)
that seemed closest. I will try it another time to see how they compare.
In any case, getting the puff/flaky pastry like I like it is possibly mission impossible...
At first glance it seems a bit more complicated/long. Anyway, if you have a recipe for it, please pretty please tell me!


Verdict: I will make these again, because they were so simple and tasty, and yes, the consistency was great...

6 comments:

Rico said...

Not bad at all, they look delicious, obviously nothing like "pastel de natas" or "pastel de belem" but certainly a good custard tart. well done. cheers!!

Christelle said...

To Ricardo: Thanks! :) the ingredients differ a lot from the "pastel de natas", but it was amazingly close! :) the soya milk made it, cow milk is much heavier...

vibi said...

AH! oui! J'ai mangé les portugaises... directement sur Bélem, là où apparement on fait les meilleures! MIAM!

Les tiennes sont très jolies et me ramènent à de beaux souvenirs!

Christelle said...

To Vibi: quelle chance! Je n'ai pas goute la version Portuguaise, mais c'est une excellente suggestion pour un week end foodie: a la recherche des egg tarts de Belem!! :)

Linda said...

Hi! I saw your comments elsewhere and decided to drop by. For your egg tart, did you mix the store bought puff pastry into the homemade mixture? From your recipe, I couldn't tell exactly how you used the puff pastry.

It looks like yours came out very nicely. Yum!

Kalice said...

Oh moi aussi, je fais une fixation dessus depuis que je les ai vues sur le blog de Mingoumango, les dan tat. La recette sur son blog est là : http://mingoumango.blogspot.com/2008/09/la-chambre-26-et-des-dan-tat-pour-une.html.

Elle n'a pas l'air si simple que ça, mais pas trop complexe non plus.
Mais il faut que je trouve du Saindoux.